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Groton Daily Independent
Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 029 ~ 38 of 67
economy.
The envisioned factory, expected
to open in 2020, would be 20 million square feet on a campus that spans 1.56-square-miles in what Walker is calling the “Wisconn Valley.” It would initially employ 3,000 people, but the deal calls for that to grow to 13,000 within six years.
An exact location has not been de- termined, but Foxconn is looking at sites in Racine and Kenosha counties.
Walker took to the air on Friday in a campaign-style airplane tour to make the case that the entire state would bene t from a plant three-times the size of the Pentagon.
“There’s a whole lot of people out there scrambling to try and come up withareasonnottolikethis,”Walker said in Eau Claire. “I can tell you, that’s nebutIthinktheycangosuck lemons. The rest of us are going to cheer and gure out how we get this thing going forward.”
Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, left, and Gov. Scott Walker hold the Wisconsin ag to celebrate their $10 billion in- vestmenttobuildadisplaypanelplantinWisconsin,atthe Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee, Wis., Thursday, July 27,2017.(MikeDeSisti/MilwaukeeJournal-SentinelviaAP)
Walker’s tour also took him to La Crosse, Eau Claire and Wausau.
The bill Walker unveiled Friday would allow Foxconn, without permits, to discharge dredged materials, ll wetlands, change the course of streams, build arti cial bodies of water that connect with natural wa- terways and build on a riverbed or lakebed.
Foxconn would also be exempt from having to create a state environmental impact statement, something required for much smaller projects.
A number of environmental groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lobbyist Bill McCoshen, who helped negotiate economic development deals in Gov. Tommy Thompson’s administration, said bipartisan support for the project should help ease the bill’s passage.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin attended President Donald Trump’s White House announcement of the deal on Wednesday and two-time Walker challenger Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett praised it at a signing event on Thursday. Other Democratic lawmakers have spoken in support.
Because Wisconsin already waives all taxes on manufacturing credits in the state, the incentives for Fox- conn would be paid as cash up to $200 million a year rather than a credit against taxes owed. They would be pro-rated based on job creation and money spent by Foxconn and could be recouped if jobs are lost.
“Gov. Walker has to some explaining to do to taxpayers in every corner of the state who will foot the bill for this deal on the Illinois border,” said Scot Ross, director of the liberal activist group One Wisconsin Now. University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural economist Steve Deller said Friday that based on what he
knows of the deal, the state structured it in the most responsible way possible.
“It seems as though, if you’re going to do this, this is the way to go about it,” he said.
One of the harshest critics within the Legislature is Democratic state Sen. Dave Hansen, who represents
Green Bay. He said moving quickly on the $3 billion incentive package would be “a serious case of legisla- tive malpractice.”
Hansen expressed concerns that Foxconn would replace jobs at the plant with robots, as it has done at